Cognitive sex differences and hemispheric asymmetry: A critical review of 40 years of research. Issue 2 (4th March 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Cognitive sex differences and hemispheric asymmetry: A critical review of 40 years of research. Issue 2 (4th March 2019)
- Main Title:
- Cognitive sex differences and hemispheric asymmetry: A critical review of 40 years of research
- Authors:
- Hirnstein, Marco
Hugdahl, Kenneth
Hausmann, Markus - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT: According to a longstanding view, sex differences in cognitive abilities such as mental rotation or verbal memory arise from sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry: males are thought to be more lateralized than females which boosts their spatial but hampers their verbal skills. This idea sparked great interest and, even though it lost support in the 1990s, it is still put forward in contemporary (popular) scientific papers and textbooks. We aimed to provide a comprehensive review that summarizes the last 40 years of research. First, we confirm previous findings that the stronger hemispheric asymmetry in males is very small but robust. Second, we conclude that stronger hemispheric asymmetry, in general, does not enhance spatial and reduce verbal performance. Crucially, we carried out a systematic literature review showing that cognitive sex differences often emerge in the absence of sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry (and vice versa), implying the two phenomena are at least partly independent of each other. At present, there is insufficient data to conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry and cognitive performance are uncorrelated. However, we can conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry are certainly not the driving force behind sex differences in cognitive functioning.
- Is Part Of:
- Laterality. Volume 24:Issue 2(2019)
- Journal:
- Laterality
- Issue:
- Volume 24:Issue 2(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 24, Issue 2 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0024-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 204
- Page End:
- 252
- Publication Date:
- 2019-03-04
- Subjects:
- Mental rotation -- verbal fluency -- verbal memory -- lateralization -- gender difference
Laterality -- Periodicals
Cerebral dominance -- Periodicals
616.8 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/plat20#.VsMsK1Lcuic ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/1357650X.2018.1497044 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1357-650X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 5157.679000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 11754.xml